


dear fellow traveller

by gallantrejoinder



Category: Pilgrimage (2017)
Genre: Diarmute Week, Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23278057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallantrejoinder/pseuds/gallantrejoinder
Summary: Seven prompts for Diarmute week, taken fromhere.
Relationships: Brother Diarmuid/The Mute
Comments: 29
Kudos: 45





	1. Faith and Doubt

“Have you ever …”

Diarmuid leaves the question unfinished.

David inclines his head, quietly indicating that he wishes to hear the end of it. He bends down to take up another piece of seaweed, shaking sand off it, throwing it in the bucket. Giving Diarmuid time to think things through. He needs that sometimes. A little longer to knit together the fragments of his questions, to present a patchwork of half-formed thoughts.

David stands straight again. He looks ahead to see Diarmuid standing unnaturally still, feet planted in the sand. Watching the horizon, a troubled look upon his face. The subtlest pinch to his brow. Bright eyes from the late afternoon sun, but still, only on the surface.

He doesn’t look at David when he speaks again. “Have you ever thought God might – that He might be in … in the flesh?”

David pauses. Takes in the suggestion.

God in the flesh. It sounds, on the surface, as if Diarmuid speaks of Christ, but of course – something so simple, so obvious and _outright_ could not cause Diarmuid to hesitate as he does. David suspects that Diarmuid speaks of other matters. The sin in the flesh.

_Ah_ , David thinks. _Lord, do you test me?_

Clear as bells, those words. He doesn’t often think so straightforwardly nowadays. When he stoppered his mouth, he had not thought that the words would disappear from his mind too – replaced with a new kind of thinking, circular, abstract. Almost spiritual, when he feels generous with himself.

Most of the time he just assumes that he has become slow.

He watches Diarmuid carefully. Doesn’t let his thoughts show on his face – and that’s difficult enough to do, with Diarmuid. The boy can read him so well.

“I mean … Can the Spirit find lodging in the body? If we could feel His love through …”

Through touch. Skin hunger – or rather, its balm. That’s what Diarmuid means.

David swallows, an automatic reflex to force back words which never come anymore. Not today, at least. He is forcing back something far more dangerous.

“Ah, don’t mind me,” Diarmuid says quickly. “I was only – never mind it.”

_No_ , David wants to say. _Please. Speak_.

He doesn’t, of course. He will not break his vow. Not for this.

A traitorous part of him whispers that he wouldn’t need to break his vow to show Diarmuid how God makes Himself known through the flesh. He doesn’t need words to use his hands. And he could put his mouth to another use, if Diarmuid wished it.

Diarmuid is murmuring something. David strains his ears to listen, though it is clear that Diarmuid is mainly speaking to himself.

_“I do not doubt you, oh Lord, I trust in your plan, Father forgive me for–”_

David stops listening. Diarmuid’s words are not for him. Nor his doubt, nor his faith.

Diarmuid was not created for him. He was created to glorify God. _Pitiful_ , that’s the word David’s mind supplies. _Pity me, oh Lord, a poor sinner …_

David follows Diarmuid along the endless sand, towards the distant bells.


	2. Salvation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this a prequel to Talk With Your Fingertips.

Diarmuid has a memory of himself, at the age of six, asking his mother what the word ‘salvation’ meant.

He doesn’t remember where he heard the word first – what prompted him to even ask. What he does remember is this: Sheila’s irritated voice, replying that he was old enough now to use a dictionary, weren’t they teaching him anything at school?

Six-year-old Diarmuid wandered off to the big bookshelf in her office and pulled down a large book, which luckily enough did turn out to be a dictionary, rather than an atlas – that was a mistake he’d made more than once in class. He painstakingly turned the pages, looking for the letter ‘S,’ then ‘S-A,’ then ‘S-A-L.’ And there it was. _Salvation_. Three meanings:

_‘1. Deliverance from the power and effects of sin._

_Liberation from ignorance or illusion._

_Deliverance from danger or difficulty.’_

Diarmuid had to look up the words ‘deliverance,’ ‘liberation,’ ‘ignorance,’ ‘illusion,’ and ‘sin’ as well.

‘Sin’ was the one that troubled him. It seemed to imply a deliberate kind of wrongness in every person, himself included – not that he knew how to articulate such an idea at the time. Still, he decided that he’d better ask someone for clarification around the whole ‘sin’ and ‘salvation’ business.

That was how he met Brother Ciarán. At school one day, he snuck across the fence during lunch, and walked up the road to the Brotherhood of Our Lady Help of Christians home. In Diarmuid’s six-year-old mind, the brothers were the keepers of God. Catholic primary school had prepared him to meet holy men indeed – men whose eyes he should avoid, and whose words he should heed – but what he found instead was a friendly face topped with grey hair, peering up at him from a garden bed.

“Hello there, little one,” said the grey-haired man. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

Diarmuid looked down quickly. “I want to know about salvation,” he said, in a small voice. “Ma said to find it in the dictionary. But it didn’t make any sense.”

The man hummed, standing up and dusting off his knees. He wore robes, which made him look as if he’d travelled from another time altogether. (Diarmuid had his suspicions – he’d seen enough _Doctor Who_ to know a time traveller when he saw one.)

“And I suppose she told you to run away from school too, aye?”

“… No, sir.”

“Well. Let’s see about getting back without getting into trouble, hmm?”

“All right,” agreed Diarmuid, reluctantly. “But I still don’t know what ‘salvation’ means.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said the man, holding out a hand, “How’s about you take my hand while we go back down the road, and I’ll tell you on the way. All right?”

Diarmuid nodded, and took the man’s hand. It was warm and dusty with earth, far larger than his own.

“Now about this salvation,” the man began, as they started walking. “I’m thinking you’d be referring to our Lord, strictly speaking. Not just any old salvation.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what our Lord’s got to do with it.”

The man looked down and raised his eyebrows. “Don’t know what our Lord’s got to do with it? Young man, our Lord _is_ salvation.”

Diarmuid thought about this for a moment. “Salvation means … our Lord Jesus?”

The man made a thoughtful noise. “Well, yes and no. Salvation means being saved. In this case, our Lord died on the cross so that we could all be saved from Hell, by knowing how much he loved us. That is how he gave us our salvation.”

Diarmuid took a bit longer to parse all of that. When he did, he frowned. “So our Lord died to show us how much he loved us?”

“Aye.”

“And that saved us from Hell?”

“It did.”

Diarmuid shook his head, bewildered. “Salvation must be pretty important then.”

The man looked down with a smile. “That it is, lad.”

By that time they’d reached the school, and a harried-looking teacher spotted them, already halfway to scolding Diarmuid quite thoroughly for scaring them all. Diarmuid hung his head in shame, but didn’t quite manage to forget the kindness of the man who’d led him back.

He found out the man’s name much later, when his mother forgot to pick him up from school one day. Unsure of where to go or what to do, he walked up the road once more and discovered the man in the garden, just as before. On that occasion they made their introductions, and Diarmuid finally learned the man’s name – Brother Ciarán.

But it was their first meeting that planted the seed of hunger in Diarmuid, the hunger for knowledge of spiritual matters that school could not quite provide. Diarmuid, for a long time, had thought of that meeting as serendipitous, a sign of his Calling.

It hadn’t quite turned out that way. But when Diarmuid wakes sometimes, in the middle of the night, to see David – his David – untroubled by nightmares, sleeping peacefully … He cannot help but think the meeting was serendipitous after all. Without that seed, without the nurturing guidance of Brother Ciarán, he might never have met David. Might have gone through his life unaware that for all the salvation to be found in God, there was a different kind of salvation, one only man could provide.


	3. Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Detailed description of drowning, and canon-typical violence.

It isn’t until Diarmuid is holding the mute in his arms that he realises the extent of the damage.

Blood flows freely from the mute’s wounds, and his breath comes shallow and quick. He lets out a weak, low sound of pain when Diarmuid jostles him, trying to pull him into position. Diarmuid whispers apologies through helpless sounds of despair – he is not quite crying, there are no tears, only confused noises from his throat he cannot seem to control. The mute still has Sir Raymond’s weapon lodged within him, and Diarmuid feels bile rise in the back of his throat, knowing what will happen if he tries to remove it.

He cannot fix his. He cannot heal the mute.

A cry of pain echoes across the lake. It is his own.

The mute’s eyes flutter open. He looks at Diarmuid, and there is something in his eyes that stills – but not in the way Diarmuid fears to see yet must, surely, minutes from now. The stillness is of another kind. A peace born of love.

Diarmuid is young, and inexperienced, and perhaps even naïve – but he knows this. He always has. He knows enough to give himself the gift in this moment of knowing, without a single word spoken, exactly how it is that the mute loves him.

And it is a gift. Because it allows Diarmuid to gather the strength to do what he must do now.

Diarmuid’s strength is nothing to the mute’s; he has neither his size nor his skills. Nevertheless, Diarmuid grew up in a harsh and unwelcoming environment, one which demanded all the labours of his body. He calls upon every inch of that hard-won strength to stand, hook his hands beneath the mute’s shoulders, and begin to drag him towards the water’s edge.

There is no reason for it, not one that Diarmuid could name in any case. The mute continues to cry out with the pain, wordless as always, weaker by the second. Diarmuid could leave him be, lessen his agony. But he does not. He brings the mute, step by step, inch by inch, to the water – knowing neither why nor how it will help. Knowing only that he refuses to sacrifice any more.

 _Unless you will it_ , a voice whispers. _Lord, if you will it …_

He does not finish the thought.

His back aches, and his legs burn with the strain – but finally, finally, they reach the water. He stumbles into the cold shock of it, feeling the water take the weight of the mute, feeling it try to sink them both.

Diarmuid pulls on the mute until only his head remains above the surface, buoyed by Diarmuid, still with his shoulders above the water. The mute’s eyes are open, but do not see. He is not breathing.

Diarmuid, curiously, feels nothing at all at that sight. He breathes, deeply, cradling the mute’s head in his arms.

“Give him back,” he says, simply. “Give him back to me.”

And then he shuts his eyes, and sinks them both below the waves.

In the depths of the water, there is a place that the sun cannot reach. The stone has, in all likelihood, sunk down to that place by now. It is lost, with Geraldus, with Cathal, with Ciarán, with them all. But where Diarmuid and the mute are, there is still a glimmer, far above their heads. Diarmuid holds his breath for a long time, waiting, forcing himself to hold on to the mute, to keep himself below the surface.

Diarmuid is only human, though. Eventually, when the light has grown faint, and his chest has begun to burn with pain, when his heart has become rabbit-like and quick with fear, he lets out his breath.

The darkness and cold rush over him in an instant, greedily stealing the life from his veins. Hell and all its servants have come for him just as his brothers always warned they would. Diarmuid gasps, cold water flooding his mouth, his throat, his nose – and in his confusion, he lets go of the mute. He flails for a moment, before his limbs weaken, his strength finally failing. There is no air, no light, no warmth.

His confusion and his terror disappear as quickly as they came.

There is only black night in this place. Silence and void. Too terrible to grasp.

Diarmuid floats in the emptiness. He has forgotten why. He has forgotten how. He knows nothing but the weight of the water.

And yet –

In the darkness, in the void, in the heavy silence –

Diarmuid’s mind is slipping away so quickly, his heart has slowed, _and yet_ –

A hand reaches out, and takes his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I'd never write about the beach because it's just too painful and yet here we are. Up to you if Diarmuid is being rescued by the fisherman, or if he was granted the miracle he asked for.


	4. Blessings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of an AU, I guess?

He does not think of it as a blessing. Nor a curse, in fairness. Too complicated for that.

It is an antivenom. The curing essence of a toxic mistake. That is their lot – _his_ lot, rather, for his angel carries no burden from life to life. Memory is his antivenom alone, and for reasons he still does not understand, it is what the Almighty saw fit to place in his hands.

It began many years ago, many centuries. Before time. In eternity’s blink.

He was born screaming his sorrow into a place of blood. There may have been a before. He does not know. Some of them had fallen, others rose from their rage. He could be of either set – those that fell were not always aware they had done so. And those that rose sometimes became convinced of their own holy lineage, and took pleasure in defiling that which never existed.

It all melts into a hopeless firestorm when he tries to remember when, and how, and who. There was only pain, then. His memories only manage to crystallize around a single event.

The first time he saw an angel.

An angel who asked to forget.

This angel had evidently asked to live amongst men, for what reason, he cannot fathom. Asked to know their kindnesses and their love, their sorrow and their rage for himself. The Almighty had clearly decided to grant that wish – for the demon who had come to call himself David when he went amongst men was washed ashore not into the hands of enemies, but into the arms of an oblivious angel.

Any angel should have known what he was. David knew the angel upon his touch, before David had even managed to open his eyes – when all he could smell was sweet honey and gold, and all he could hear was a whisper of worry. Beneath it, the terrible love of the Almighty.

That was the day David chose to fall silent. The first day he felt an angel, and knew that that angel had chosen to live cut off from Heaven. Unknown. Unseen. Even to himself.

He knows exactly what he is. The angel, in the body of a boy, does not. It is a blessing – to remain even as close as he has been permitted. To feel anything at all that is not rage, even, to …

To know what it is to love.

And that also is his curse. To be so close to what he once might have been, to know he will never be so good again. To know that despite it all, and only through the angel’s innocence, that somebody cares for him.

To know what it is to be loved.


	5. Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for misuse of the holiest sacrament :/

The Eucharist, David is given to understand, is the holiest amongst the sacraments. Every year the school holds a first communion ceremony for the fourth years, nervously trotting out in their white frocks and dress suits. Without fail, parents usher the children together for photographs, flush with pride at their obedient ten-year-olds, ready to take on the responsibility of faith and become one with the holy Church.

David isn’t so sure about that. He’d received his first communion as an adult, and hadn’t told anybody it was his first. Back in the pew, the wafer sticking to the roof of his mouth like a particularly flavourless ice cream cone, he didn’t feel any different. Other than somewhat guilty, for the lie – he’s still unbaptised.

He hadn’t gone back to church for a couple of weeks after that. But still it stood, watching him every day when he went to work. The David of a decade ago might have felt degraded, doing the humble work of a janitor – responsible for mopping up the vomit of five-year-olds, the litter of sixth-years getting too big for their boots, and the coffee stains of exhausted teachers. Present David knows better – knows the glory of humbleness, the relief of honest work.

Of course he’d begun to pick things up, working at a Catholic primary school. Nobody could blame him for getting intrigued enough to drop by the church, take a spot in the pews, think about things. Sitting there, he’d wondered if this was what a calling felt like, or if he was just curious.

That was what motivated him to take communion. And he feels guilty about it, he does, but that’s the other thing – he can’t go to confession. He hasn’t learned enough Sign to do that, and he’s sure as hell not writing out a confession and just to watch the priest read it in excruciating silence and tell him to say ten Hail Marys. So there’s only one thing for it, really.

Go to mass like a good not-quite-Catholic boy, and hope God’s all right with it.

The next Saturday evening, he shows up early, nervous that someone’s going to know what he did and call him out on it. Terrified too, knowing that if they do, he won’t be able to respond.

But nobody does. He blesses himself with the water, feeling the cold shock of it sending a tingle through his forehead – an odd sensation, one he’s still not used too. He remembers to kneel before entering the pew, which is something he’d had to pick up through observation. The pews begin to fill up with elders, and families whose children refuse to rise early on a Sunday. It’s been threatening snow all week, though it’s late in the year for it, and the church is frigid with the rush of cold air that pours in with every person who enters. Duffle coats, gloves, hats are removed – though a few of the older women leave on their knitted beanies and best scarves, an old habit.

The priest enters without much ceremony. It’s not a feast day, they’re in ordinary time. As the mass begins, David allows the soothing repetitiveness of the words to wash over him, to take his thoughts to another time – a desert, a temple, a parable about a lost coin … Stories that are supposed to reveal some great truth about the universe. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever believe that, but he likes a good story. Always has.

He doesn’t notice the boy at first. They’ve reached the Eucharist, and the priest has called up volunteers to help distribute the bread and wine amongst the parishioners. Usually it’s the same people – someone’s fastidiously Catholic aunt, another’s dutiful grandfather, always at least one middle-aged woman there alone week after week.

But there’s a new face today. Startling in its youth. A boy – no older than twenty, surely – with brown curls falling over his face, a small mouth in a sharp face. A gaze never leaves the floor.

David sees him, and it –

It feels … not like a thunderstorm, nothing so loud and destructive, but an overnight snowfall. Waking up to discover a white blanket over the sludge of the day before. Pure, and clean, and utterly blinding in the morning sunlight.

David can’t explain it. But there it is.

Silent snowflakes drift inside him.

He can’t take his eyes off the boy.

The priest is handing brass cups of wine and metallic platters of bread to those assembled on the altar. David hopes the boy doesn’t take the wine – he couldn’t bring himself to drink it last time. The association with blood is … well, in this place, it’s intentional. But the bread. He can take the bread. He can commit this sin again if it means being able to –

He doesn’t finish the thought.

The boy takes a small plate of bread, and walks to the front of David’s aisle.

 _Does it mean something? Lord, tell me if it means something._ David’s thoughts flurry, disturbed by a cold wind. A line is beginning to form, though, so he can’t afford to sit there, stupefied by something he can’t even name – at least for very long.

David is sitting near the back as he always does, but he doesn’t feel impatient, waiting those few extra minutes to join the line. Some nagging doubt has begun to creep in. He cannot truly be so affected by the face of a stranger. And even if he is, he should put it down to – to some baser urge, though he _knows_ what that feels like and he _knows_ this isn’t it.

The line moves slowly forwards. David’s palms have begun to sweat, but he places his left hand, cupped, into his right – a little too early; he doesn’t need to do that yet. What’s done is done. Looking down, he fights the urge to hide them. His hands are ugly things, brutish and hardened from work, and cracked from the cold, with nails bitten down to the quick. He feels a hot wave of shame at the sight of them, and looks up –

Only to find that he’s reached the head of the line.

The boy is looking down, carefully picking up a wafer of bread – one of the triangular pieces. That means it’s come directly from the one the priest broke. David can’t see his eyes. Only his hands. Long fingers – short, clean fingernails. Stronger than they seem.

The boy looks up at the exact same moment as David, and their eyes meet.

David forgets how to breathe.

There’s an almost imperceptible widening of the boy’s eyes. In the dull light of the church, they seem black as night. David waits for him to say the words – but he doesn’t. He simply looks at David, utterly silent, as if he too has forgotten how to speak. The wafer waits, forgotten, between his fingers.

 _Is this it?_ Is this a calling? Or –

God help him, is it something else?

Someone should say something. If David could speak, if he could – he’d make a joke, disarm the boy, make him laugh. Make them able to pretend this never happened. Whatever this is. Whatever impossible, fleeting feeling.

All moments must end.

There’s a polite cough from behind David, and they both jump, as if they’d both forgotten where they are. The boy goes to speak, but his voice cracks, and he stops, flushing.

He clears his throat. “The body of Christ,” he says, with a voice like leaves in Autumn – a faint crackling.

David doesn’t reply, of course. Only in his head. _Amen._

The boy puts the bread into his hand, and there’s a moment – less than a moment, half a blink – when the tip of his forefinger brushes David’s palm.

It feels the same. _Exactly_ the same. The way it feels when David blesses himself before mass, with the water against his skin, sending a ripple through him, like a snowflake falling directly onto his forehead.

He forces himself to turn away and walk back down the aisle. Placing the bread in his mouth mechanically, it melts against his tongue as he enters his row. There he kneels, hands clasped in front of him, preparing to pray. He doesn’t look up, casting his line of sight to the floor.

 _Forgive me,_ he thinks. _I just wanted to see him. Lord, forgive me._

The rest of the mass passes quickly. David doesn’t look up once.

“Go in peace, the mass has ended,” the priest says.

David remains rooted to the spot. Head still bowed.

He waits until the majority have left, letting the elderly shuffle past and out into the cold night. He hears them begin to gossip and exclaim over this, that and the other – all of it meaningless to him; he’s not a member of this community. Not really. He’ll always be an interloper here. Foolish to think …

Eventually most of the parishioners are gone, and only then does he dare to look up. He can’t see the boy, and tells himself he isn’t disappointed.

He stands and makes his way towards the doors. The church is almost entirely empty now, and the entryway is free of any stragglers by the time he makes his way over. There’s a shock at the door, though – enough to make him stop cold.

Outside, it’s begun to snow. Thick flakes are falling softly upon the ground, as gentle and quiet as a whisper from mother to child.

David can’t help but think, _well, how about that?_

A week of threatening it, and everybody jaded enough by now to not suspect. But there it is, moving silently through the city while they pray. Making the world anew. In the darkness, a brilliant carpet of white.

He’s so caught up in the sight that he almost doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him. It’s only at the last moment that he turns.

“Hello.”

It’s the boy. A little flushed, zipped into a hoodie that’s nowhere near thick enough for the weather, hands deep in his pockets.

He looks at David, something odd in his face. “I … Er, my name’s Diarmuid. I … I noticed you were – waiting … I – erm, is there someone you need me to call?”

David almost forgets about his voice for a moment. He scrambles to remember what he does in situations like these – but he remembers, after a spell. He pulls out his phone, the script pinned to the top of his notes app.

_‘Hello. My name is David. I can’t speak due to an accident, but I can still hear perfectly well. I am still in the process of learning to Sign but prefer to write when possible.’_

He hands it to Diarmuid, and watches his face transform into sympathetic understanding.

“Oh! Well – that’s not a problem. I’m learning to Sign too, actually. But I’m not – not great at it yet.” Diarmuid looks almost excited by the prospect. “I will be! Eventually.”

David nods awkwardly.

Diarmuid smiles at him, and it’s blinding – like sunlight, magnified. David feels helpless at the sight, lost – unable to process what it means.

It only takes a moment for Diarmuid’s smile to fade.

“I … Sorry, I know we just met but I –” Diarmuid stops, dropping his gaze. “It sounds … ridiculous, but I …”

David’s heart skips a single, treacherous beat.

Diarmuid felt it too. He _felt it_.

Diarmuid looks up again. “You know – maybe we could practice Signing together? Or – or if you were wanting to help out around the church, I know we never have enough volunteers, maybe …”

David looks at his phone, quickly navigating to the messages app. He hands it to Diarmuid, hardly daring to hope that this is what Diarmuid’s asking for.

And there it is again. That beautiful smile breaking across Diarmuid’s face.

He adds his name and number quickly, then hands David’s phone back. “Well, that’s – thank you. Er. I – I guess I’ll let you go now, I – uni, and … things. Good night!”

Before David can stop him, Diarmuid steps out into the snow, a shiver almost stopping him in his tracks as the freezing air properly hits. He makes his way towards the footpath, and David …

He can’t help it. He picks up his phone and begins to type.

_‘Do you want some company walking home?’_

Hitting send makes him feel almost sick with nerves. He watches as Diarmuid pulls out his phone, steps slowing.

But then – he stops, turns around –

“Yes,” he says, almost too softly for the distance.

But in the quiet of the snow, it’s just enough to be heard.

“I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My grandmother can see me from Heaven doing this with the faith she passed down to me, but she's pretending she can't. So, not that different from when I was an obviously gay teenager.
> 
> Also, TWO THOUSAND FUCKING WORDS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.


	6. Worship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a weirdly niche AU.

The Mute is infamous.

After all, what kind of performer will sing but refuse to speak? It doesn’t make sense no matter who you ask. The kind of singing he does only adds to the mystery – it’s not particularly show-y; the man’s got a Johnny Cash kind of gravel and a mournful, Hozier-esque tonal quality. He’s not exactly known for his ability to hit the high notes, so it’s not as if he needs the rest for his voice.

Most people think it’s a gimmick. And honestly, who can blame him? These days there’s singers without faces, singers who’ll only appear dressed in one colour, singers who pretend it’s the eighties twenty-four-seven. It’s hard to make yourself stand out in the market after a fashion, so an original gimmick is always a bit of fun.

But still. A singer who won’t talk. That’s a new one.

It’s fairly annoying when that’s all that anyone can talk about though, especially for a fan. Which Diarmuid in fact is – the Mute’s _biggest_ fan, he likes to think. At the very least his most dedicated.

Not that he’s planning on telling anybody he feels that way. He already talks about the Mute too much. Ciarán even had to gently let him know that perhaps he should keep his mind on his studies. There aren’t many young men joining the priesthood nowadays, so Diarmuid doesn’t like to disappoint him. Not when there’s so few of them, and Ciarán spends so much time helping him.

The Mute doesn’t leave his head, though. Nor his heart. There’s something about the music, the gentle strum of his guitar – the softened rage of a broken man. The way his performances are always so quiet, as if everyone is under a spell. Not that Diarmuid’s been able to get to one yet – he only knows because of shaky phone camera footage other fans have put online. He was too young the first time the Mute was in town, reliant on his mother – and she wasn’t planning on letting him go anywhere while he lived in her household.

At last, though, an opportunity has finally arrived to see him in person. The Mute is performing in Dublin again, after an absence of three years. The second he finds out, Diarmuid books himself a ticket to see him – it’s one night only, at a smaller venue. The Mute isn’t exactly known for sell-out stadium tours. It’ll be – intimate. Something special.

Or so Diarmuid hopes.

On the night of the performance, he’s nervous. He dresses down, then up, then shakes his head at himself and grimly accepts his fate: a button-up and jeans. God help him. He can’t understand why he’s so anxious. _You’re being ridiculous_ , a voice hisses at him from the back of his mind. A voice that sounds like his mother. _Hush_ , he whispers back.

The place is small. A run-down theatre from a century ago – it’s seen better days. Diarmuid walks through it as if in a dream. There’s a nagging voice in the back of his head, telling him that he’s being ridiculous, but he can’t bring himself to pay too much attention to it – not when he’s so close to seeing the Mute for real.

He takes his seat, second row from the front – he got lucky, attending by himself and snapping up his ticket quickly, despite the added cost. He’s early, but still, it feels like a very short time before the seats around him fill up and the lights go down.

A spotlight on the stage, in front of a single microphone. The sound of heavy footsteps, boots – just like the Mute always wears. It sends a thrill right through Diarmuid, that sound.

Simple as that, and the Mute is right before Diarmuid’s eyes.

He wears a brown corduroy coat over a buttoned up shirt, and dark green trousers. His beard has grown out again – Diarmuid knows he cut it for charity; he remembers the pictures. The startling realisation of the features the Mute had hidden for so long. He’d looked so open.

A guitar is slung around his neck, and he takes it with careful hands before beginning to strum some chords.

It’s a song Diarmuid recognises in an instant. A song about grief mixed with rage. How to reconcile the two. Diarmuid had listened to it a lot after his mother died.

Then, the Mute closes his eyes, takes a breath, and begins to sing.

Diarmuid doesn’t even blink. He watches the Mute sing, lets the sound of his voice wash over him like baptism. _That’s blasphemous_ , the voice whispers. _I don’t care_ , Diarmuid shoots back, before he can stop himself.

The song ends abruptly, and the Mute opens his eyes to scan across the crowd. Diarmuid holds his breath, hardly daring to hope he’ll be noticed – but of course, he isn’t. The Mute begins another song soon after, a song about lost love. Something Diarmuid’s never experienced, though the song almost makes him feel like he has.

It’s in the middle of that song that it happens. The spotlight moves, somehow, there’s a convergence – the light behind the Mute is blinding, but Diarmuid can’t look away. Right at the climax of the song, the Mute looks out to the crowd once more, and there’s a long moment – Diarmuid’s not imagining it, it lasts longer than it should, he _knows_ it does – when the Mute’s eyes meet his.

The Mute holds onto the note he’s singing for a long moment, looking right into Diarmuid’s soul, and Diarmuid thinks, _oh. This is what it’s supposed to be like._

His Calling. This is what it was supposed to be.

_Oh, God._

He can’t breathe. _Thou shalt not worship false idols._

But he does. He does.


	7. Baptism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beach day!

It isn’t often that David has a moment to himself.

Diarmuid likes to follow him, chattering away about everything that enters his head. David doesn’t mind, really, but it does mean he rarely gets any time alone. Not that he needs much – his ghosts will never let up if he spends too much time in silence. Perhaps that’s why he enforces it upon himself. Because he knows he deserves it.

But Diarmuid will not have it . There’s a living voice to join the ghosts now, and David will let it be. After all, Diarmuid was the one who found him, salt crystals in his beard, clothes soaked through with brine, in that tiny boat upon the shoreline. Years ago now. It feels strange to think of it being so long.

The sea doesn’t scare him, despite how he came to the monastery. The sea has always welcomed him home – that was why he boarded the boat in the first place. To find what he may, to let the waters take him where he must go.

These days he rarely enters the water itself. The monks do not know how to swim, and even when he was a warrior, David was one of the few who could. It might tell the monks more than he wishes them to know about where he grew up – they might begin to ask about a fisherman for a father, or even, perhaps, a lord. Those aren’t thoughts he wishes them to have of him.

Or, to be more accurate, those aren’t thoughts he wants Diarmuid to have.

That’s why he doesn’t swim in front of them. That, and the freezing weather which makes swimming entirely unsuitable, sometimes even in the summer.

But today is different. Unseasonably warm, for spring. And he is alone – Diarmuid is busy with his prayers during this part of the day, and David is free to do as he likes. Sweat gathers at his temple for several minutes before he finally pushes himself off the sand and begins to strip, preparing to enter the water. He leaves his clothes and boots in the sand, knowing there’s no one for miles around but the monks to care.

The water is cold when he enters it – but he presses on, knowing that it’s better to get the worst of it over with. The water washes over him and he sighs, the relief of it palpable throughout his whole body.

He swims out into the waves, but not too far from the shore, knowing the currents could turn against him if he’s not careful. Then he simply floats, letting the waves bob him up and down like an apple in a tub.

It reminds him of childhood. A halcyon time, hazy and unknown in the distance. Something he can never get back. Nor should he.

But still. There is this – the water. Unchanging in its repetition. Renewing in its power.

He closes his eyes and feels the sunlight on his face, burning his skin. A wave comes over him, and he lets it pull him under, the cold force of it pushing him back towards the shoreline.

When he emerges from beneath the surface – still deep enough to have to stretch his toes to the sand below – he shakes the water from his eyes, intending to swim back towards the beach, taking the wave as a sign he should head back.

But when he turns, there is a figure on the beach, watching him. It sends a single shockwave of panic through him – until he recognises the figure. _Diarmuid_. Of course.

He must have seen David swimming, sure and strong within the waves. He must have questions.

He must have seen David’s back.

David holds himself still within the water. He doesn’t want to come back in, with Diarmuid watching him. He can’t simply wait out in the waves forever, either.

The waves tug him first one way, then the other.

He stands, unmoved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied :/
> 
> Anyway! All done, thanks to @pilgrimagesource on Tumblr for all the prompts and organising the week! It's been a blast <3

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr.](https://gallantrejoinder.tumblr.com/)


End file.
